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Another “Historic” gone wrong


JuanCarlosVejar

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17 minutes ago, JuanCarlosVejar said:

This Southern Jumbo 1943 has 20 frets:


The one on the website has 19.

 

🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️

JC

And a bound fretboard.

My Fuller's '43 SJ at least has a 19-fret board, but it does have a bound fretboard. Someone at Gibson just decided the bound fretboard looked better, even though it came out  a decade later.

20 frets, on the other hand, is just wrong on any banner replica.  How hard can it really be to terminate the board right at the 20th fret position? You can correct that at the assembly phase in 10 seconds on a bandsaw, and slap a piece of binding across the bottom of the fretboard if that suits you.

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Website specs for the 42 SoJo say 1.77" (44.95mm)/ 19 frets.

Odds are high for that neck with 20 frets above is a standard modern Gibson 1.72"!!!

Anyone else get the feeling the new specs are just the old specs with a new name?

I was interested in the 42 Banner J45 but not any more - the website specs say the nut is 1.72". Shouldn't it be 1.75"?

My 2002 J50 is probably closer to the Banner spec...😐

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

Edited by BluesKing777
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44 minutes ago, BluesKing777 said:

 

Website specs for the 42 SoJo say 1.77" (44.95mm)/ 19 frets.

Odds are high for that neck with 20 frets above is a standard modern Gibson 1.72"!!!

Anyone else get the feeling the new specs are just the old specs with a new name?

I was interested in the 42 Banner J45 but not any more - the website specs say the nut is 1.72". Shouldn't it be 1.75"?

My 2002 J50 is probably closer to the Banner spec...😐

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

In fairness, BK, I bet your 2002 J-50 is 1.72". The difference in 1.72" versus 1.75" is 43.69 mm versus 44.45 mm.  That's a tiny amount if you pull out a scale and look at it objectively. If your J-50 is supposed to be a 1950's model, the original would have been 1 11/16" at the nut (42.86 mm). Yes, I know it can make some difference, but just pretend you're on a desert island and can't always always get what you want.

I bet you'd adapt just fine, even if you're grumbling every step of the way. Those of us who listen to your great playing would never know how hard you're struggling with that narrow nut.😐

By the way, I agree with you on 1.75" being really nice. I have three with that: '43 SJ re-issue, L-OO Legend, and 000-28 EC. (plus my carbon fiber travel guitar is 1.75" , but we're not counting that type. Or my classical with a 2" nut.)

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Thanks Nick.....yeah, I guess I am a bit disappointed with the website spec sheets of the guitars I am interested in.. the new Banner LG2 - with 1.69" nut, the new original L-00 with 1.72 and slim taper and brown guard instead of firestripe, the Banner J45 with 1.72"

I mean - if that LG2 had a real Banner fat neck 1 3/4" and a nice fat V, well I could just possible swim there to get one! Same for the L-00! Same for the J45 Banner. Torrefy the tops a bit if you want, Mr G.

But if we go by the specs, well the new models are just the same as the old with different paint n' paper.

 

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

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15 minutes ago, BluesKing777 said:

 

Thanks Nick.....yeah, I guess I am a bit disappointed with the website spec sheets of the guitars I am interested in.. the new Banner LG2 - with 1.69" nut, the new original L-00 with 1.72 and slim taper and brown guard instead of firestripe, the Banner J45 with 1.72"

I mean - if that LG2 had a real Banner fat neck 1 3/4" and a nice fat V, well I could just possible swim there to get one! Same for the L-00! Same for the J45 Banner. Torrefy the tops a bit if you want, Mr G.

But if we go by the specs, well the new models are just the same as the old with different paint n' paper.

 

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

Yup.  Same as before.   It would be nice if they were exact to what there suppose to represent.  But that old tooling from the Ren days will last for ever.  I cant imagine Gibson retooling for accurate historic guitars.   But look at the bright side.  Prices went up .  For what?  Not sure . 

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5 hours ago, BluesKing777 said:

 

Website specs for the 42 SoJo say 1.77" (44.95mm)/ 19 frets.

Odds are high for that neck with 20 frets above is a standard modern Gibson 1.72"!!!

Anyone else get the feeling the new specs are just the old specs with a new name?

I was interested in the 42 Banner J45 but not any more - the website specs say the nut is 1.72". Shouldn't it be 1.75"?

My 2002 J50 is probably closer to the Banner spec...😐

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

 

I am not familiar with vintage SJ's, but I had a 1944 J-45 on loan from a friend who stopped playing. I am really into AJ's and played a few old ones and own one of the 2013 limited edition 1935 AJ's. The 1.72" is common on these old Gibson's, maybe they shaved too much back then, but the '44 J-45 had that nut width and so did the old AJ's. Gibson copied Burnette's AJ for my 1935 reissue and it also has the 1.72" width. So it's not a modern size.

Here is a post from John Arnold from the UMGF, a well known luthier and vintage Martin and Gibson expert: These two AJ examples show that 1.72" is vintage correct.

Here are the dimensions I have:
Nut width = 1.715"
Width @ 14th fret = 2.075"
Width @ end of fingerboard = 2.165"
Bridge spacing = 2 3/32"
Thickness of neck:
1st fret = 0.880"
10th fret = 1.000"
The AJ's I have seen are very consistent in the neck dimensions. They all 'push the edge' of the fingerboard with the string spacing, which may not be desirable with all players. This is made worse by the Gibson fretting method, where the frets stop at the binding joint (neck binding is done after the frets are installed). Refretting an AJ "Martin style" (over the binding) can gain a little fret width, but not much. The binding is usually rounded over, which negates widening the frets very much.
EDIT:
I do have another AJ in the shop, which I can measure later tonight. I don't suspect it will be much different, but we'll see.


John
 

And here is the data from the other AJ he talked about, 

All the AJ's I have seen have a rounded neck that I wouldn't necessarily call a 'vee'. It only has the slightest peak in the center at the first position, and rounded in the upper registers.
Here are measuements of the second AJ, a 1937:
Width:
@ nut = 1.720 
@ 12th = 2.098
@14th = 2.138
@ fingerboard end = 2.185
Width measurements are compromised by the fact that the fingerboard binding is shrunken or scraped, creating a step at the junction of the fingerboard and neck. The fingerboard itself is approximately 0.015 narrower at the nut, and 0.050 narrower at the 14th fret than the above measurements.
Thickness:
@ 1st fret = 0.810
@ 10th fret = 1.045
This guitar has had replacement bridges and bridgeplates, making it impossible to measure the original bridge pin spacing.John
 

 

Edited by J45fan
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12 minutes ago, Lars68 said:

 

These two guitars appear to have rheir soundholes in sligthly different places.

Lars

 

To me it looks more like the fretboard on the right one is longer after the 19 fret. Typical Gibson, they were never consistent totally unlike Martin. But that's what I like about 'em. You never know what you get. Same model, different woods, 2 or 3 tone bars etc

Edited by J45fan
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2 hours ago, J45fan said:

 

To me it looks more like the fretboard on the right one is longer after the 19 fret. Typical Gibson, they were never consistent totally unlike Martin. But that's what I like about 'em. You never know what you get. Same model, different woods, 2 or 3 tone bars etc

 

If you look at Willi Henkes analysis

http://www.bannergibsons.com/registry.html

there were a lot of changes in 1943.   Before all the data came in from crowd participation in the UMGF and those instruments could be correlated, a lot of those guitars were dated as 1942.  The guitar on the left is RW 910-74, and it has a modest neck profile and a truss rod.  By no means is that neck type even typical of the batch, where many guitars -- like the one on the right -- had baseball necks with no truss rods.  Here is a picture of all three of my 1943 banners -- two have no truss rods.

j30rcxV.jpg

Gary Burnette's AJ IMO really is a prototype.  That claim is made too often IMO, but in the case of that guitar I think it is warranted.  I have an early production batch AJ, which looks quite different than Gary's AJ.  Mine looks like all the other early AJs, but it has three tone bars!  Huh.

Like J45fan says, the only thing consistent about Gibson was its inconsistency.😎😎

Best,

-Tom

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21 hours ago, slimt said:

Yup.  Same as before.   It would be nice if they were exact to what there suppose to represent.  But that old tooling from the Ren days will last for ever.  I cant imagine Gibson retooling for accurate historic guitars.   But look at the bright side.  Prices went up .  For what?  Not sure . 

 

I am glad I am not the only one seeing it!

Does anyone know how they (Gibson, Ren F) arrived at 1.72 for the modern Gibson nut spacing? Split the diff between 1.69 and 1.75? A guess that keeps on guessing? Anyone?

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

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6 minutes ago, BluesKing777 said:

 

I am glad I am not the only one seeing it!

Does anyone know how they (Gibson, Ren F) arrived at 1.72 for the modern Gibson nut spacing? Split the diff between 1.69 and 1.75? A guess that keeps on guessing? Anyone?

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

You know , the one that could of answered all the reasons why.   Is not here anymore.  He has all the info you are looking for.      Im going on a guess that Ren got most of this tooling and measurements from his own Builds.   He chose a happy medium.  

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Not really buying anything so it doesn't matter - we are all saving our own skins here in lockdown...

The shop near me with lots of acoustics to try is shut for the duration but they have a couple of Collings I would love to try. ( I have my Waterloo WL-14X and WL-14L - L-00 shape with 1 3/4" nut and 2 3/8" bridge spacing which is pretty well comfortable for my fingerpicking, also my Cargill custom and 2 Martin OMs with the same!) The shop has what is called a Collings C10-35, which is also a L-00 shape with 1 3/4" nut but a slightly narrower 2 5/16" bridge spacing and.....very expensive! They will happily sell it online only at the mo but not to this duck - not without playing first even if I had the cash.😏  Collings also make a J45 type shape called a CJ35, again with 1 3/4" nut and 2 5/16" bridge spacing but I have never seen one here. I would love to try both - Collings have a good reputation for getting it 'right'! You could not have surprised me more a while back when I noticed my Waterloos are bolt on necks, like all Collings guitars. I assume they were trad dovetails because they imitate old Kazoos, but no. I haven't noticed anything peculiar with a bolt on ....

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

Edited by BluesKing777
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3 hours ago, BluesKing777 said:

 

Not really buying anything so it doesn't matter - we are all saving our own skins here in lockdown...

The shop near me with lots of acoustics to try is shut for the duration but they have a couple of Collings I would love to try. ( I have my Waterloo WL-14X and WL-14L - L-00 shape with 1 3/4" nut and 2 3/8" bridge spacing which is pretty well comfortable for my fingerpicking, also my Cargill custom and 2 Martin OMs with the same!) The shop has what is called a Collings C10-35, which is also a L-00 shape with 1 3/4" nut but a slightly narrower 2 5/16" bridge spacing and.....very expensive! They will happily sell it online only at the mo but not to this duck - not without playing first even if I had the cash.😏  Collings also make a J45 type shape called a CJ35, again with 1 3/4" nut and 2 5/16" bridge spacing but I have never seen one here. I would love to try both - Collings have a good reputation for getting it 'right'! You could not have surprised me more a while back when I noticed my Waterloos are bolt on necks, like all Collings guitars. I assume they were trad dovetails because they imitate old Kazoos, but no. I haven't noticed anything peculiar with a bolt on ....

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

I own a CJ35... out standing guitar.

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1 hour ago, slimt said:

I own a CJ35... out standing guitar.

 

How would you compare the CJ35 to a J45? Do you notice the extra space from the 1 3/4" nut and bridge spacing?

I think I read they are non scalloped tops with an extra tone bar, so probably more a 50s J sound?

If I win lotto the C10-35 at the shop will be mine immediately.😎

I also read that the builders for Collings are so proud and pedantic and they didn't want to make the first Waterloos with their intentional glue blobs and rough bits etc.

 

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

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7 hours ago, BluesKing777 said:

 

How would you compare the CJ35 to a J45? Do you notice the extra space from the 1 3/4" nut and bridge spacing?

I think I read they are non scalloped tops with an extra tone bar, so probably more a 50s J sound?

If I win lotto the C10-35 at the shop will be mine immediately.😎

I also read that the builders for Collings are so proud and pedantic and they didn't want to make the first Waterloos with their intentional glue blobs and rough bits etc.

 

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

 

Collings borrowed a 1939 J35 from Mass St. Music to base their version on.  Non-scalloped tall thin X brace and three un-scalloped tone bars.   Very different from either of the two bracing carves used by Gibson in the 1950s.  That Collings  is one of only a handful of "newish" guitars I would love to own.  I can afford one but I am just too much of a cheapskate to lay out that kind of cash.   Old habits die hard I guess.  But then again I am sitting pretty as I have yet to play any guitar I like better than my 1942 J50.

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8 hours ago, BluesKing777 said:

 

How would you compare the CJ35 to a J45? Do you notice the extra space from the 1 3/4" nut and bridge spacing?

I think I read they are non scalloped tops with an extra tone bar, so probably more a 50s J sound?

If I win lotto the C10-35 at the shop will be mine immediately.😎

I also read that the builders for Collings are so proud and pedantic and they didn't want to make the first Waterloos with their intentional glue blobs and rough bits etc.

 

 

BluesKing777.

 

 


The Collings CJ is very much like the vintage Gibson feel. And , sound.    
if you couldnt find a Vintage j35,j45 for a decent price. The CJ would in my opinion fit the needs.  I gave 3500 cdn for mine. Which in todays market is not that much.    I have not found a New vintage reissue J45 that compares to the tone or feel.     Its a light guitar. The neck is that 50s feel. The string spacing is just like the vtg pieces. 
 I think Collings tried to put that vtg spin of the 30s, 40s 50s Gibson in to one guitar to make everyone happy. 
 

They did a good job. 
 

as for Martin. Franklins in my opinion are just a better guitar.  More bang for the buck. 

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The irony is that if Gibson wants to do "historic" re-issues of any of its guitars, we have plenty of forum members who have original versions of those guitars, and play them every day.

It reminds me of when they were going to do historic re-issues of some of JT's  Kalamazoo Gals guitars, and how that project got caught up in internal wranglings.

Accurate "historic" information is right here, and freely available in the form of playable artifacts. It's not locked away in a vault or sitting in a closet somewhere (like many of the shipping ledgers may be).

Edited by j45nick
spelling correction
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14 minutes ago, j45nick said:

The irony is that if Gibson wants to do "historic" re-issues of any of its guitars, we have plenty of forum members who have original versions of those guitars, and play them every day.

It reminds me of when they were going to do historic re-issues of some of JT's  Kalamazoo Gals guitars, and how that project got caught up in internal wranglings.

Accurate "historic" information is right here, and freely available in the form of playable artifacts. It's not locked away in a vault or sitting in a closet somewhere (like many f the shipping ledgers may be).

 

I was considering why they don’t seem to know a Banner LG2 mostly had a chunky neck with 1 3/4” nut...etc, etc.... and it occurred to me : Gibson (acoustic) make NEW guitars and mostly sell them ALL!😧

So no old models there to check.......

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

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36 minutes ago, BluesKing777 said:

 

I was considering why they don’t seem to know a Banner LG2 mostly had a chunky neck with 1 3/4” nut...etc, etc.... and it occurred to me : Gibson (acoustic) make NEW guitars and mostly sell them ALL!😧

So no old models there to check.......

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

Probably because there shiny and New.   Most dont pay attention to the details. They get caught up in the moments.  

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12 hours ago, slimt said:


The Collings CJ is very much like the vintage Gibson feel. And , sound.    
if you couldnt find a Vintage j35,j45 for a decent price. The CJ would in my opinion fit the needs.  I gave 3500 cdn for mine. Which in todays market is not that much.    I have not found a New vintage reissue J45 that compares to the tone or feel.     Its a light guitar. The neck is that 50s feel. The string spacing is just like the vtg pieces. 
 I think Collings tried to put that vtg spin of the 30s, 40s 50s Gibson in to one guitar to make everyone happy. 
 

They did a good job. 
 

as for Martin. Franklins in my opinion are just a better guitar.  More bang for the buck. 

 

 

They don't have any of the CJs, or vintage Gibsons for that matter, for sale here. Use to be able to pay with plastic to Elderly or someone and get anything as long as I had the money! But with CITES and new trade rules, we only get what the local shop has or orders in. And of course, their prices have gone up!

I saw 2 CJs  and some C10-35s for sale at a shop in Sydney, the next state up from me. May as well be the Moon...

But I was reading the Collings guff on their site and noticed that the new "Traditional" series with 'older' sound are all Martin shapes - no CJs or C10s. Perhaps there are "Traditional" Cjs and C10s to come?

I tend to believe a lot of what Collings say on their website - unlike others we know, ahem, the PR is quite understated. My Waterloos sound older each passing day, but play superbly. They certainly had the right recipe for them! I have long been a Steve James blues guitarist fan and he has sported, among other guitars, a Collings C10 for many years. I have it on dvd and it is a cause of the C10-35 gas.

 

 

BluesKing777.

 

 

Edited by BluesKing777
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From 26 November 2019, you will no longer need CITES permits to import or export the following items made from rosewood species (Dalbergia spp., or Guibourtia demeusei, Guibourtia pellegriniana, Guibourtia tessmannii) listed on Appendix II of CITES:

  • finished musical instruments, finished musical instrument parts and finished musical instruments accessories (see definitions below); and
  • finished products to a maximum of 10kg of rosewood per shipment.

These exemptions apply to all trade. Existing exemptions from permit requirements for leaves, flowers, pollen, fruits, and seeds from these species remain in place.

These exemptions do not apply to trade in:

  • Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra).
  • Dalbergia spp. originating and exported from Mexico: only logs, sawn wood, veneer sheets and plywood require CITES permits for export from Mexico to Australia. 
  • Dalbergia cochinchinensis: all parts and derivatives except pollen, seeds, seedling or tissue cultures, stems, and flowers require permits for import or export.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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To be clear, what I was talking about 2 separate problems

- 1.  importing vintage Gibsons to Australia and with CITES even a bottom of the rung 50s Gibson LG2 has a Brazilian Rosewood fretboard and bridge and needs certification.

- 2. importing any new guitar direct from a US dealer or manufacturer is not possible because of recent US trade policy changes, implemented to support the dealer network who were getting bypassed by online buying.

from Sweetwater:

International Shipping:

Due to manufacturer restrictions, we are limited in what we can ship outside of the United States. Please call us to find out if the item(s) you are interested in can be shipped internationally. The following are exceptions to this policy (some restrictions apply for these destinations):

 

Doesn't matter - just discussing and not buying.[biggrin]

BluesKing777.

 

 

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